With the greatly increased use of personal computer terminals having visual displays in both the workplace and home, the problem of reflection and glare has become acute. Such reflection and glare, now represents one of the major objections and problems associated with long and continuous use of CRT type and other visual display. Although the problem has existed for years with television and other CRT displays, extreme long term concentrated viewing was not required, since the casual television viewer could always look aside or shift his head to a different position to avoid reflections or glare on the television screen. Unfortunately, with respect to computer terminals and the like, the operator must maintain his eyepoint within a limited range of positions since he or she may also be required to refer to an input data source or a keyboard which is located proximate the visual display. Consequently, freedom of head motion so as to find a location where reflections and glare from the CRT screen are not objectionable may not be possible. The basic concept of such glare and reflection reduction used by the present invention was first disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,032,222 issued to J. M. Lapeyre. As disclosed in that patent, the natural and still common practice of orienting the display plane of a visual display at right angles with the line of sight from an observer's eyepoint may represent the worst possible orientation for such a light emitting display. As is further disclosed in that patent, glare can be eliminated by proper orientation of the display plane of the visual display in combination with the use of a light obstructing shield. As disclosed in the aforementioned Lapeyre patent, the inventive concept may be used with many and varied light emitting displays. In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 4,235,523 also to Lapeyre discloses and claims a very important use of the original concept as it applies to traffic signals. It will of course be appreciated that traffic signals being located outdoors are subjected to extreme glare and are particularly subjected to glare from the sun. Other patents considered relevant to the basic concept during the prosecution of the U.S. Pat. No. 4,032,222 patent include U.S Pat. Nos. 2,162,791 to Shreve; 2,819,459 to Dodd; 3,499,112 to Heilmeir, et al; 3,531,178 to Wirth; 3,566,602 to Bergey, et al; and 3,881,805 to Hosokawa, et al. In addition, various electronic arcade games and pocket-size portable television receivers which of course use cathode ray tubes as a display source incorporate the basic concept of the original Lapeyre U.S. Pat. No. 4,032,222 patent. However, to this date, the applicants are not aware of any support cabinet for a computer terminal display which provides for continuing elimination of reflection and glare while also allowing for selective positioning of the viewing plane and the light obstructing shield to a desired position depending on the particular eyepoint and needs of the observer.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a support cabinet for visual display systems whereby reflection and glare is eliminated with respect to an adjustable nominal eyepoint.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a support cabinet for a computer terminal display system which operates in conjunction with an input keyboard to eliminate glare and reflection and minimize necessary eye movement between the keyboard and the display.